Delphi complete works of.., p.398
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 398
The chief, as I said, was from the Highlands himself.
There was great relief that evening when Angus went off home. But it ended abruptly the next morning when he came back. In fact, things were worse. On the first day, to most people, it was no matter of personal alarm; indeed it was more or less a good joke on the slackers. But this next morning Angus was parading up and down the street in a sort of military fashion. He’d got a new idea. He was after the whole town now. He said that Mariposa had to raise its Quota — that sum that it was pledged to raise. Raise that, he said, or he’d shoot up the whole street.
But the trouble is, the Quota was put too high; everybody knew that. You know Mariposa. It was just vain glory and civic pride. They never expected to raise it.
Angus is on the street right now. The Chief of Police won’t interfere. He says let them raise the Quota.
Most of them think they will. In fact, they’re all at one another to do it. Angus will see that they do.
Nothing like righteous indignation, is there?
THE CHAIRMAN’S WALKING STICK
IT WAS PRETTY well understood by the middle of the Victory Loan Campaign in Mariposa that on the final evening they would present the Chairman of the Committee with a stick. This was partly on the Chairman’s own account. Jim Heavyside — that’s the older one; don’t confuse him with young Jim — is one of the biggest business men in Mariposa, head of the largest of the companies, and just retired from active work a month ago after a long life of service to the town. And now he’s thrown himself into this campaign with all his old time energy. In any case he’s a good feller; I mean he’s all right.
It has always been the thing in Mariposa to give a man a walking stick in recognition of any public service. They gave a stick to the designer of the historic monument in the Park, and a stick for the Municipal Abattoir, and a stick for the new wing of the Asylum that increased its capacity three to one and definitely put Mariposa on the map as a home for the feeble-minded.
Generally when they’re going to give a stick the idea gets started and goes round town, confidentially, of course, so that the man himself won’t know it. In this case, as a matter of fact, the idea originated in Jeff’s barber shop and it was Jeff himself who first started it. He stopped his scissors one afternoon and rested his elbow on the customer’s neck and said, “What about a stick for Jim Heavyside?”
The idea caught right on. And Jeff — you know how a modest man gets encouraged and goes on — said that to his mind, one of these Malacca canes with a band on it would be just right. It appears that they sell canes like that clear up to a hundred dollars, and past it, though you wouldn’t think it.
Well, that was all settled and the next thing was to raise the money. Bill Landy — he’s the mining broker I spoke of — generally does that because he understands finance. He just gets from each feller what he feels like giving, and keeps it confidential. He gives out nothing except the total. A lot of mining business is done that way. They just tell you what you get.
So that was all settled, and Bill got busy and a couple of days later he was telling a group of us in the shop that he had all the money for the cane in sight, when who should walk in but Jim Heavyside himself. He was leaning on a Malacca cane. You could have knocked any of us down with a club.
One of the fellers, in a chair, who could only half see, called out, “What’s the matter, Jim, gone lame?”
“No,” said Jim Heavyside with a laugh, “the boys at the factory gave me a farewell supper last night and this stick as a presentation. That’s the third stick,” he added, “that I’ve got in less than a month. Take a look at it; isn’t it a dandy?”
They passed it round but of course the heart was out of the idea now. They had to think of something else.
Well, the next day, Jeff said to some of the customers in the shop, “Professor Byron was up here from the City yesterday and he says why not give Mr. Heavyside one of these sets of books — what is it — an encyclopaedia?”
“An encyclopaedia,” said one of the fellers. “Why, Jim Heavyside could never read that. He’s no scholar.”
“You don’t have to read an encyclopaedia,” says another. “It is for the front room. And when you buy them now they sell you a glass case right with them so that you don’t have to open it even for dusting. Bert Trawley has one — has had it for ten years — and it’s in dandy shape — good as new — they never open it.”
“Grandfather had one,” said another customer, “given to him like this when he retired, but he read his; yes, sir, sat down to read it clear through and get the good out of it. But he was too old when he started. He died in the letter A. But Jim Heavyside is only sixty-five. He can tackle it.”
So it was settled that the presentation gift would be an encyclopaedia. But just to avoid all error this time they got Bill Landy to go up to the Heavysides’ house to spy round and see if they had one.
Lucky they did. They had one sure enough, and a real beauty, an antique, in fine old leather, at least seventy years old. Goodness knows what it would fetch today. So that was a lucky escape from another bad break.
Then came a suggestion that carried every one with it. It’s a wonder that so often the right thing never occurs to any one at first. This idea like so many others, came from Peter Cogland, the new lawyer in Mariposa. He’s always full of ideas and popular. Of course, he’s new to Mariposa — only been here six years — but the feeling is that after he’s been in the town a while and gets settled, he’ll play quite a part.
Anyway, it was Peter who said, “Why not give Jim Heavyside a case of Scotch Whiskey?” Well, the idea just caught like wild fire.
Someone said, “But Jim doesn’t drink,” and Peter said, “That doesn’t matter. You see, he has to entertain a lot, and now all the more because of this campaign and being retired. He’ll have fellers in his house all the time. This whiskey will come in just right. But listen — a case is only two dozen isn’t it — we might make it two cases — one for Jim and one for Mrs. Heavyside.” “That’s right,” said one of the boys, “the only question would be whether Scotch whiskey is as acceptable as gin — a case of real old dry gin—”
“Or if you come to that,” interrupted George Summers, “what about a case of rye?”
But he was ruled out. Everybody knew that George only drank rye.
The only question was whether such a presentation was legal. Would the law of the province allow it or not! So Jeff said, “I tell you boys, why don’t you telegraph down to the city and ask if it’s legal to give the Chairman of a Loan Committee a case of whiskey? I can’t express it right,” said Jeff, “but no doubt Mr. Cogland could.”
So Peter Cogland got a pencil and a pad and they started framing a telegram to the Attorney General’s Office. It was certainly hard to phrase.
“A group of citizens of Mariposa desire to know . . .”
That didn’t sound right.
“On behalf of the undersigned group . . .”
And that sounded wrong.
“Would you consider a case of Scotch whiskey . . .”
No, that sounded backwards.
Then someone suggested, why shouldn’t they write it just the way Jeff said it:
“Is it legal to give the Chairman of our Loan Committee a case of whiskey?”
So that was what they sent.
Telegrams are like that.
The answer came right back while most of them were still sitting round discussing it.
“Presentation entirely legal. Writing you to that effect.”
So that was great. They started right away picking brands off a Liquor List, each one what he liked best.
Naturally there were quite a number of fellers in the shop next day when the noon mail came in. The letter was addressed to Jeff and it read:
“Your proposed presentation of one or more cases to the Chairman of your Victory Loan Committee is entirely within the law. The only limitation upon it is that the cases must not be bought for this purpose but must be filled with bottles taken from the private stock of individual subscribers.”
Well, say! . . . Talk about a Victory Campaign — talk about sacrifice and winning the war — but when it comes to . . . well, I mean when you ask a man to — well, who would want to . . . oh, no, reason is reason.
So that was the end of that. I will admit that for the moment all the fellers looked pretty downhearted, almost felt mean. They knew that they were right in not asking one another to give up private whiskey but somehow they didn’t feel so good.
Luckily there came to Peter Cogland on the spur of the moment one of those bright ideas that will some day send him to Ottawa — or half way to it. Anyway — as far, say, as Kingston.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “We’ll give Jim Heavyside a hundred-dollar Victory Bond.”
Wasn’t it simple? And timely? And obvious? And yet no one had thought of it. It’s always like that. Give the Chairman one of his own Bonds! Why, of course!
So the meeting — it was a sort of meeting — broke up with enthusiasm and went to dinner.
I lingered behind a moment.
“That’s fine, isn’t it?” I said. “That was the real solution.”
Jeff shook his head.
“I don’t know that I hold with it,” he said. “You give a man one of his own Bonds and it seems like giving milk to a milkman — or it’s like giving me a free shave and a shampoo.” And he added gloomily, “Jim will be disappointed about the stick.”
“About the stick?” I said.
“Yes, he is expecting it. He’d heard something about it. He’s got the notion of sticks. You see, Jim Heavyside is not vain but he’s pretty proud of having three sticks given to him, and he was hoping to make it four. That’s why he came down here with the Malacca cane . . . In fact, it was my idea. I said to him, ‘Mr. Heavyside, if you’ll come down to the shop and bring one of your sticks that’ll put the boys on their mettle to give another.’ ”
Luckily it hasn’t been too late. Everything is arranged and the Chairman will get his stick. We have it all ready, and a real dandy. Some of the fellers think it must be worth a hundred and fifty dollars, some more. No one knows how much Bill Landy collected or what he paid for it. “Better taste,” Bill said, “to keep it confidential.”
GOING! GOING! GONE!
NEXT TO ME in Jeff’s barber shop in Mariposa there sat this morning a country feller, at a guess, from thirty-five to sixty-five years old.
“Were you out at the sale at Crittenden’s yesterday?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “where’s Crittenden’s?”
“Crittenden’s!” he answered in amazement. “Why, right next the Ames place.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“The Ames place? Just beyond Lem Crowder’s.”
I let it go at that.
“No,” I said, “I wasn’t there.”
“Well, sir,” said the country feller, “you’d oughter been. It was a caution. I seen a sulky go for thirty dollars.”
I didn’t know whether that meant a lot or a little. But the audience in the barber shop did. “Gosh!” they said.
“Yes, sir, a sulky ten years old and with a broken trip, for ten dollars more than it cost ten years ago.”
“There was an old lumber wagon there,” said a man from across the room, “fetched a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Gosh!” said the room.
“I suppose,” said the country feller to me, “you wouldn’t be much interested in farm sales?”
No, not altogether. Yet, as he said it, I was carried back sixty-five years in recollection and was standing in the April sunshine in the slush and snow of a barnyard — a farm auction sale — while the purchasers — who didn’t purchase (they had no money) — walked up and down among the lean cattle and the broken machinery for sale. The farmer of the farm was treating them to whiskey and laughing it off as best he could. He was “sold up” and was going to move, they said, to “this Manitobah.”
Inside the farmhouse the woman — the lady of the farm — was cutting sandwiches for the purchasers who couldn’t buy but could still eat. The children were helping her. I was one. I could hear the voice of the auctioneer — hear it still across sixty-five years of memory — calling:
“Now, gentlemen, this fine double-seated cutter, as good as new — what do I hear? — make me a bid, gentlemen! Come, give me a start! Four dollars? Thank you, four dollars! Going at four dollars. Going! Going! Gone, at four dollars!”
Those were the hard times of the seventies, with no war to brighten the economic outlook, when the government had to borrow a million dollars, but couldn’t find it in Canada.
But one need not look back across sixty-five years of retrospect for the remembrance of auction farm sales, the tragedy of the Canadian countryside. Five years is enough. Just five years! To those stricken, hungry days when our ten million people had no one to kill and no one to feed but themselves. Right here in Mariposa, every month of May brought with the Spring birds the little leaflets, the “dodgers” that fluttered, pinned up to the telephone and light poles and pasted up in the window of the Mariposa Newspacket:
Auction Farm Sale
Lot this: Concession that
To be sold regardless of reserve price
And then follows the list. Stand here a moment and look upon it, and reflect upon the tragedy of our economic life that knows no stimulus but death.
Item 1. — Two-year-old grey mare —
Do you get that? That’s Fancy, the family driving horse. They’ve had her for years and years on the farm. They must have had her for eight years. There’s a boy now in Tunis remembers driving her. They loved her. That’s why they put her down at two years. It’s not a lie. She was still two years to them.
These two “excellent milch cows,” part Jersey (never mind the other part) and these “mixed poultry” — all that in the life of a family — Going! Going! Gone!
Or look at the last item:
Household furniture, books —
Do you realize that those are the books that grandfather’s father brought out from the old country, a hundred years ago? Look — Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake; half of part of Macaulay’s England — nothing you read now of course . . .
And with that I came back to myself still in Jeff’s barber shop and they were talking of the sale at old Tom Crittenden’s place. They were saying that he “cleaned up” (their very phrase, taken from a fanning mill) fifteen hundred dollars. What else could he do but sell up, with both the boys, it appeared, overseas, and Sally. Tom himself is spry enough and not a day over seventy-five, but he and the old lady can’t run the place alone.
And just as they were saying that in burst old Tom himself.
When I say “burst” — that is, he appeared outside the glass door, leant his stick outside the door frame, pulled the door open a little, then got his shoulder to it, took up his stick again and burst in.
So there he was, hearty and hale, and evidently so tickled with himself that he could hardly hold it in. He didn’t look the least bit like the people who used to be sold up in the seventies.
There was a chorus of “How are you, Mr. Crittenden?” . . . “How are you, Tom?”
The old man nodded around. “Just come over, Jeff,” he said, “to get cleaned up.” Then, unable to hold it any longer, he added, “I’ve just put fifteen hundred dollars across the street in this Victory Loan; yes, sir, fifteen hundred dollars.”
That explained, you see, the need of a shave. Farmers, of course, are people who shave regularly; never miss a Saturday except in harvest. But when a farmer “hits town” one of the things to do is to get a shave — a real one — with a Roman massage, and a shampoo under machine brushes — facial massage, lilac powder and flapping towels — the whole thing.
“You’re next,” said Jeff, giving him “priority” over all candidates; “sit right down.” And with that, Crittenden was draped and wrapped and pinned and whirling brushes played round his bent head. When anyone spoke to Tom, the barber stopped, Tom answered, and then Jeff went at him with the brushes again.
“You’ve sold your place, Mr. Crittenden?” said a customer.
“No, indeed, I didn’t sell the old place; just sold off the implements and the stock.”
“Couldn’t work it, eh?”
“Not now, with just the missus and me, and the boys gone, and Sally.”
“Where are the boys now, Mr. Crittenden?”
“Both overseas. Jim’s in Iceland with General Montgomery and Dick’s right there in London with General MacArthur. Oh, I follow it,” added old Tom.
“Too bad, to lose all your implements,” said a sympathizer.
“Oh, I ain’t lost ’em. They don’t take ’em away. They’re right there to work the place with.”
“But you lose the use of them?”
“No, sirree, I don’t lose the use of them. I can use them as much as I like any time.”
“So you’ve just lost the livestock?” put in another customer.
“No, not entirely. The folks don’t want to take them away and so the missus and I still have them on condition we milk the cows and use the milk and eggs.”
There was a man in the shop waiting for a shave, a traveller (you know what that is) up from the City.
“Say, mister,” he said, “I don’t quite understand this. You’ve sold out and you’ve got fifteen hundred dollars and yet you still have your place and everything else you ever had. How do you explain that?”
“I don’t try to,” chuckled the old man. “I leave that for Mr. Ilsley — all I know is that I got fifteen hundred in this Victory Loan — that’s five hundred each for the boys and five hundred for Sally.”
